Leveraging images for SEO: Increasing user engagement

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One of the common ways websites retain users is by publishing new content regularly, usually through blogs and news updates. This prompts users to check back often and spend time on site which ultimately helps with rankings. It also has the added effect of letting a site target a relevant topic in their field that might be trending currently to bring in a new audience. It’s important to ensure what you are publishing is engaging and relevant for your readers, an easy and often overlooked aspect to increase user engagement is simply good image(s).

SEO Benefits of an Image

At first glance it may seem like an odd thing to declare. An image? What could an image or two possibly do for me? My writing is fantastic and that’s all I need to retain my reader base! The answer is really simple: people like nice pictures! A good image or two helps to grab the user’s attention and gives them a nice visual of what the article is about. We’re very visual creatures after all.

Providing good images helps drive up user retention, which in turn helps search images to know that your blog post is relevant to the topic users’ are searching for, thus driving up that pages rankings for that topic. In addition to user retention, images will provide you the opportunity to lay in relevant keywords using the image alt tag. This helps your page rank for additional keywords but also helps your image appear in the image SERP.

Info Graphics, Better then Pictures

Here’s a handy tip:

As useful as images are, info graphics is where it’s really at.

The advantage of the info graphic over a normal image is it’s a simple and engaging way to sum up your article, while keeping users on your site, and then get more shares in social media. Who doesn’t love sharing info graphics? They’re a great reference guide for your topic, and as with normal pictures, you benefit from the alt tag.

If you’re handy with graphic design then you might be able to cook up on of your own whenever you need it. If not then you could utilize an info graphic creation tool, but keep in mind that there is a science behind a good graphic. Your best bet would be to choose a professional graphic design service with a specialty in info graphics. It’s well worth the cost to get a great graphic published.

A note on videos

With all this talk on images, it should be mentioned that video is king. A well constructed informational video embedded into the content of your high quality blog post is the best of all worlds. It’s engaging content that retains users as they watch through it. Don’t underestimate the power of a good video, but don’t run out and make poor quality, or super long, videos as these can be damaging to your SEO efforts.

Now go forth gentle content writer! Produce great content with some awesome media laid into it!

NetGain is a web development and SEO company in Barrie, ON, that has a specialty in writing content for the web. If you’d like to leverage high quality content but lack the time or flair to produce it, reach out to us and tell us your needs.